New Hobie 18SX, and a few questions to speed up set up

So I pulled the pin and bought a 1999 Hobie SX. I'm upgrading from a 1980 H16 that I absolutely love, but it has seen better days. I got my 16 from a guy that had it moored in the San Francisco bay for 10 years and 5 years later it still has barnicles on it. I've fixed it up as best I could. What a change this new boat is.

I found the new 18sx on Craigslist and snatched it up as fast as I could. It is beautiful. The hulls are beautiful, the wings will be so nice. I set it up for the first time as a dry run to see what is missing, and what I need to update. Lucky for me that list is very short. As a side note, holy cow is that mast a lot heavier than the 16, also i kind of forgot about those diamond wires and how they get in the way. Just something I'm going to have to get used to.

So I was wondering if I could get a few set up pointers, things that you guys do to make set up quicker and more efficient. Do you guys use quick pins on the wings once they are folded out? What do you leave on the boat, and what do you take off when trailering?

Thanks so much,

Adam

I leave side stays attatched ,remove trap wires,remove rudder pins and rudder assm.,leave jib furled around fore stay(and remove with bridles tucked in and covered in sail box).I put quik shackles at boom to block,jib clew. No quik pins on bridles or top of fore stay(can break,big problem).Quik pins on rudder ext, goose-neck of boom.thats all I can think.

I now keep the boat on a beach but when I didn't.....

I use safety pins on the solid pin on the bridal tangs. Use solid pins on all standing rigging. Use a pin with a plastic keeper for the boom gooseneck. I leave the rudders on, bungy the rudder crossbar to hold them locked up. (unless traveling far, then I take the rudders off). Leave all wires conected to the boat and mast, bungy them to the mast. I have always used bolts for the wings. I feel it gives more stability and less movement which IMO leads to less weld or wing damage.

Best I could ever do was 40 minutes with two people who knew what they were doing.

_________________
1989 Hobie 18 Worlds Boat, Magnum Wings & Spinnaker
1987 Hobie Holder 20 #273

dale.vanlopik"at"att"dot"net

Thanks for the reply guys, it doesn't sound too much different than what I have been doing with my 16. Stuff the standing rigging in the port hulls and it's all set up for the next trip. I haven't trailered with the rudders on, but that's because the castings on my 16 are a little tired and I haven't found putting them on each trip to be too much of a hassle. The only major difference I can see is on the wings.

I'm thinking that in order to speed up the wing set up time I'll use safety pins in place of the ring ding on the clevis pins. Does this sound like a good idea, or should I just use the ring dings?

Thanks,

Adam

I haven't towed mine with the wings yet (doing some repair work on one wing) but bought it with quick release spring clips that go into the clevis pins (like on a trailer hitch receiver) and that seemed good enough for me as these are not as critical as standing rigging. I have also seen a PVC support that sits on the mast base and then has legs to hold the wings in place for trailering. I saw it on beachcats.com and in a link on this forum and was going to make one soon when I get my wings on the boat.

Any chance you can post a link to that support you're talking about?

Thanks,
Adam

Here is the link for the H18 wing supports for trailering.

http://www.thebeachcats.com/index.php?m ... emId=11711

There are a lot of other great ideas on the main technical help gallery with pictures and descriptions

http://www.thebeachcats.com/index.php?m ... emId=10570

I found this info for the first time in another link on this forum (giving credit to someone else) but it is great info to look at and has helped me with some other questions I have had.

There is even some for mast stepping methods with pictures that there has been a lot of questions on lately.

Thanks so much for the links. I'm definetly building one of those once I get the wings on my boat. The guys in my fleet support their wings both fore and aft.

Thanks,

Adam

If you have not already viewed, even though this is a 21SC video, I learned a few things to make the setup time shorter.
http://www.hobiecat.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=19910

One great tip was to leave all stays and trapeze wires attached and to just thread these through the wing lacing. This is very easy to do and saves trying to loop, tie, stuff and all other methods to secure them traveling down the road.